


Three oh four nine four two

by stitchcasual



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Drinking, Guilt, Heavy on the angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mass Effect 2: Arrival, arrival dlc, in a weird sense of the phrase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: Shepard's always done what needed to be done. In the Tenth Street Reds, on Torfan, against Saren and the Geth. And now, against the reapers, she's taken out an entire star system.Or: Shepard needs someone to talk to after the events of the Arrival DLC.





	Three oh four nine four two

Thane watched as Shepard drank. He wasn’t worried about that. She didn’t do it often and there wasn’t much left in the bottle in any case. He wasn’t worried about her silence or the frown stuck between her eyebrows. He and Shepard often sat together without speaking, both of them lost in their separate memories or calculating strategies for their ongoing mission. He knew Shepard’s past weighed heavily on her, and the moments she didn’t frown were few and far between, fewer and farther the longer they spent out in the far reaches of the galaxy, chasing any lead that might give them an edge over the Collectors. All of this was normal, part and parcel of Taran Shepard, his  _ siha. _

What he  _ was _ worried about was the way she swirled her liquor around in her glass for several minutes before throwing it back and pouring a refill, the way she had refused to leave the med bay even after Chakwas pronounced her fit for duty until the Alliance admiral had come and gone, and how she hadn’t spoken to him for another full day afterward. Three days she had been absent from him, and he worried.

The crew knew only the barest of facts: one, that Commander Shepard had been dropped off under the radar on a personal mission from someone high ranking; two, that she had been radio silent for nearly two full days; and three, that she finally contacted the Normandy from an asteroid on a collision course with that system’s mass relay. Nothing else was released in the daily news bulletin Miranda published, and Shepard had only spoken to a few people in the CIC long enough to set their course for the reaper IFF they needed to proceed past the Omega 4 relay. Since then, she’d holed up in her quarters. It made the crew antsy to not have their Commander walking among them as she usually had. Though she’d never socialized with anyone outside her squad much, her presence was as much a part of the Normandy crew’s everyday life as the mess sergeant’s occasionally passable cooking.

Shepard summoned him to her quarters with a message instead of dropping by Life Support as she tended to do, and he worried. Still, he presented himself at her door when she’d requested he do so, hands clasped behind his back, and announced himself. More formal than their usual meetings and Thane sensed she was falling back on protocol as a sort of buffer between herself and everything else. Why, though, he did not yet know, and he rocked a little on his feet as he waited.

Now he sat on the couch perpendicular to Shepard, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees, and looked aside at her. She hadn’t put her hair up into its customary bun and it hung in a thick, brown curtain around her angular face. Taran Shepard was a hard woman, in mind, in body, and in experience. Her prominent cheekbones dropped down to a sharp chin and a thin, pursed mouth. She had no eyebrows to speak of but a permanent crease above her hooked nose. Earth, the Alliance, and Torfan had carved her into the person who sat near him, broken, bitter edges and a conflicted heart.

“You haven’t asked me a single question, Thane,” she said, the skin of her forehead wrinkling in imitation of a raised eyebrow. Her voice sounded rough, huskier than usual, a byproduct of the liquor and...something else.

Thane spread his hands open then clasped them again. “You have not been ready for questions,  _ siha." _

Taran snorted and threw back the contents of her glass. She set it on the table next to the bottle but didn’t refill it, just stared. “Do you want to know how many people I just killed, Thane? Ask me how many.”

He paused before answering, allowing two full cycles of his inner and outer eyelids blinking before he hummed and spoke. “How many?” 

“Three hundred and four thousand,” she exhaled, “nine hundred and forty-two.” This time she bypassed the glass entirely and simply tilted the last of the bottle into her mouth, grimacing. “Batarians. Mostly. I suppose that ought to make it easier.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m good at killing Batarians.”

Taran coughed, curling forward to deposit the bottle back on the table. She remained hunched over and spoke to the floor.

“I'm not even completely sure what I did will delay the reapers, but that's what I told Hackett, the only justification I had for taking so many innocent lives. And you wanna know the worst part?”

Shepard didn't look up at him, but Thane shifted his posture ever so slightly to angle more toward her. She matched his movement, bringing their knees within a few inches of each other.

“Tell me,  _ siha." _

“I'd do it again. In a heartbeat. If there was even the smallest chance that it would delay the inevitable.” She raised her head then, meeting his gaze with flat, brown eyes. He saw no hesitation in her, knew she would in fact do whatever it took to save a galaxy that even still did not believe her, but he could see the guilt piling up, these lives added to the already formidable collection she'd had when they met and the ones he'd helped her add in their time together. They chipped away at her, their weight bowing her spine but stiffening her resolve. It wasn't only the living she had to prove something to.

Thane hummed but did not reach to take her hand or hug her or offer other physical comfort. It wasn't what she wanted. Neither did she want empty platitudes, the meaningless sentiments offered when one didn't know what else to say. She looked to Thane to provide what no one else would: absolute honesty.

“And you must.” He watched her nostrils flare and scented the anger that rolled from her in an instinctive wave before she tamped it down. Even if she expected honesty from him, she didn't always like what she heard. “The galaxy needs you as you are.”

That pulled a harsh laugh from her, and she reached for the liquor bottle before remembering it was empty. She clenched her fist instead and feel back against the couch, thumping her hand against the cushion next to her. “And you, Thane?” she asked, directing her stare toward the empty, burbling fish tank on her wall. Fish on a spaceship. Ridiculous. “How do you need me?”

Thane studied her profile before responding. He knew how much time she was comfortable with when waiting for an answer and took those moments to catalog the new set of her face. The lines branching out from the corners of her eyes were almost imperceptibly deeper, perhaps unnoticeable to anyone who had not spent many waking hours committing them to memory even though he had no need of such scrutiny. He liked the application though, the long minutes spent in quiet contemplation. These new lines would not fade, not with the way she nursed them like a wound, and he worried.

“As you are,” he replied, before his silence could cause her agitation. “As you would like to be.” He spread his hands again. “I need only you.”

Shepard shook her head, closing her eyes and letting gravity pull her head down to the back of the couch. “One of these days you’re going to realize my redeeming qualities aren’t that redeeming. Just promise me you’ll let me say ‘I told you so’ before you leave the ship.” Thane chuckled in response, and Taran cracked one eye open at him.

“Do you wish to have a competition, Shepard? Whose body can kill the most?”

She snorted and closed her eye again. “Pretty sure I just won that in a landslide.”

“And yet I am not back in Life Support, preparing to disembark at the next port.”

“We’re a long way yet from port. Give it time to sink in.”

They lapsed into a silence punctuated only by Thane’s occasionally ragged breathing, Taran’s own breaths slow, measured, and nearly silent. She looked up at the viewport in the ceiling of her cabin, closed so the vast, empty black of the void outside the ship didn’t tighten her lungs uncomfortably, press menacingly against her brain, or paralyze her limbs. There were many things she could handle. That was not one of them. Not yet.

She held her next breath, imagining the starfield beyond the viewport and flying her mind back to the devastation they had fled. Three hundred and four thousand.

“Thane?”

“Yes,  _ siha?” _

“Did I do the right thing?” Shepard exhaled softly, threading her fingers together.

“Our hunt is not yet over. Amonkira reveals all in time.” 

She sighed and blinked at Thane, who blinked back. “Well, it’s not a no.”

Nine hundred and forty-two.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on the [tumblr](http://stitchcasual.tumblr.com) where I take prompts, reblog stuff, and am running a follower giveaway until next weeeeek.
> 
> Massive thank yous to the Writers Block who cheered this on in little bitty bits at a time.


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